Apple Pie
by Red Gerbera
Summary: "If there was anything Edward wanted more than to bring Hughes back, it was for Winry to stop crying. But there was nothing he could do to bring Hughes back, and there was nothing he could do to comfort Winry." Extended cut of scene from EP16 "Footsteps of a Comrade-in-Arms." Rated M for sexual content. Edward/Winry.


Winry did not hear the first round of knocks at the door of her hotel room. The sharp sound barely penetrated the cloud of grief swirling around her. It was a cloud warmed by the hot tears that seemed to keep falling and the short noiseless hitches in her breath. And still the cloud pressed down on her, smothered her in a vacuum where simple joys didn't exist. The way her favorite wrench at Garfiel's shop felt in her hands when she used it. The smell of warm sugar. The red of apples.

But somehow, the knock at the door did reach Winry in her darkness. She turned her face from her pillow. When had it gotten dark? The shade in the room was drawn. Even if it had been up, the room would be covered in darkness, for there was no moon that night. The only light came from one dusty lamp in the corner of the adjoining sitting room. The bulb must have been old—the light was dim and hardly reached a few feet before succumbing to the darkness.

Winry lay still. The small part of her mind that was still concerned with functioning, the primal drive to survive even at times where living felt blasphemous, willed her to get up and answer the door. But even that part of her mind, it seemed, was choked by the darkness in her room. This, and the darkness that had made its new home in Winry's heart.

But the knock came again.

"Winry? You in there?"

She did not know that she was slowly rising to her feet. She did not see the basket of apples on the squat coffee table, though it made an impression in her subconscious that allowed thoughts to be wrung from her mind at last.

 _Take the peeler and peel the apples. Take the knife and cut the apples into four segments around the stem and the seeds. Thinly slice the apples. Hold the knife at the base. Rock the knife back and forth, don't just slap it on the cutting board. Make a claw so you don't chop your finger off like an idiot._

The door was slowly opening. Winry must have opened it, because she saw that she was holding the door handle.

Edward stood in the bright hallway. Short strands of blonde hair fell around his face, angled toward the ground. When he realized that Winry had opened the door, he lifted his hazel eyes to hers. But she was focused on the ground, her blue eyes squinting at the sudden intrusion of brightness.

He knew that she hadn't improved, and that her mind was in a dangerous place. He was in that place too. He had been in this mental place before with his mother. A shadow coiling around your heart so tightly. It made you desperate to do anything. Even things considered taboo.

All these feelings—all this death—lurked quietly beneath the surface of Edward's mind, gnawing on the misery he currently felt. He knew that Winry's mind was filled with similar machinations. But instead of Edward's mother, she saw two bodies slain in the middle of a battlefield. She saw a house on fire. And of course, they both saw a man in a telephone booth. All of them took up residence in Winry's and Edward's minds, settling there to haunt them for as far into the future as they could see.

Edward wasn't able to put any of this into concrete thoughts. All of this was just a vague feeling. Like a mix between missing someone without knowing if there even is a someone to miss, and interminable present-ness, that nothing will ever move forward again. But hadn't that been Gracia's advice to the both of them? To move forward? But Edward could still hear Elicia from behind the Hughes' front door: _Mommy, please don't cry._

"You haven't eaten yet, have you?" Edward asked Winry. He knew she hadn't. After a moment of silence, he continued. "You might want to hurry, the dining room is closing soon."

 _Get the bowl out of the cabinet. The big glass bowl. The last time you used the metal bowl, not all of the apples fit. Add half a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of flour, half a teaspoon of nutmeg, half a teaspoon of cinnamon. Stir it with a fork. The mixture should be tan. Don't forget the salt._

Winry thought she nodded, or made some kind of noise confirming what Edward said, whatever he had said.

"You know you have to eat," said Edward, "to keep up your strength."

Even though they had only gotten the news of Hughes' death a few hours earlier, Edward thought Winry looked thinner than when she had left to visit the Hughes family. Her collarbones protruded noticeably beneath the slightly-askew straps of her white tank top. Dark circles had made neighbors with her bloodshot eyes. She sniffled, then nodded and grunted in vague agreement with Edward.

Edward was a 15-year-old boy who had dealt with his past tragedies through combat. Having Alphonse as his brother and sparring partner had gotten him through most of what life had dealt him so far. Seeing as he couldn't just throw punches with Winry to cheer her up, he gave up.

"Okay," said Edward. "I'll go back to my room."

He felt her hand on his. The warm flesh on metal wasn't something that he was used to, outside of landing a punch or bringing his own hands together for transmutation.

Winry hadn't realized that she had grabbed Edward's hand. But what drove her to it was the same part of her that urged her to get out of bed—the survival part. She needed him in order to survive.

* * *

Her eyes were fixed on the basket of apples. The spheres threw shadows onto the table.

"I got these apples at the market to make apple pie," Winry said in an empty voice.

"Apple pie?" Edward repeated.

 _Put two cups of flour into a bowl. Any bowl is fine. Work the butter into the flour using that fancy baking gadget. A pastry cutter. Add a little salt and water. Mix the dough with a spatula. Once it gets thick, knead it with your hands. And this time take your bracelet off first._

There were still dough bits wedged into her leather bracelet from the last time she tried to make pie. But that batch had actually turned out the best. The filling had the same consistency as Gracia's pie. That was Mr. Hughes' favorite part. Fitting, Winry had thought at the time, for his warm and friendly personality.

In her mind, she saw Hughes pick up the plates they had used for the pie from the table. On his way to the kitchen, he paused at Gracia's seat, put his hand on her shoulder, and kissed her on the top of the head. Winry saw the Gracia naturally leaned into Hughes' touch.

"That's right, I'd practiced making it a few times."

The last pie she had made, the one with the best filling, she had brought to Dominic's house in the outskirts of Rush Valley. Everyone there had a slice—Ridel, Satella, Paninya. Dominic was a little less gruff that day, giving a short nod to Winry after wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

Even the baby had some of the filling. Every time his dad put a small piece of apple in front of the baby, his face broke out into a big toothless grin as he tried to pick up the apple. But the butter and sugar made it too slippery. Eventually he baby gave up and licked the apple off the tray of his high chair. This made everyone, including Dominic, laugh.

Had she, Edward, and Alphonse made it to Rush Valley by the time Hughes had been murdered? Maybe if she hadn't made them make a pit stop on the way to Dublith, she would have been able to see him. After all, the trip to Rush Valley had made them leave a few days early, so they could stay on schedule. Maybe if they had just stayed a few more days, he could have been convinced to stop researching the philosopher's stone. Maybe…

 _Knead the dough with your hands. Divide the dough into two portions. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin. Remember to add flour if the dough gets too sticky. Grease the pie tin with lard. Put one portion of the dough in the pie tin. Add the apples to the sugar mix. Stir until the apples are coated._

"I know it might… sound like I'm bragging, but… I've actually gotten pretty good at it," said Winry.

Her mind burned with the image of Gracia coming out of the kitchen, pie in her oven-mitted hands. The steam rose generously off the golden crust. Hughes rubbed his hands together in an exaggerated fashion, and Elicia shrieked with laughter.

Hughes brought his fork, loaded with a lavish serving of apple pie, close to Elicia's face, before quickly doubling back and shoving it in his own mouth. That made Elicia laugh even louder.

"Daddy!"

Winry heard Elicia giggle as if it were happening right next to her, at that moment, in her dimly lit hotel room.

Then Hughes cut off a piece of his own slice of pie and heaped it onto Elicia's plate before kissing her on the cheek.

 _Cut the extra dough off the sides of the tin. But leave enough so you can pinch the edges and make those beautiful folds. Drape the other portion of dough on top. Make slits in the dough so the steam can escape._

It was either the first or second batch that Winry forgot to make slits in the top of the pie. None of the built-up steam could vent. The apples, the sugar, the butter, all of those ingredients swimming together in the heat of the oven. When Winry pulled the pie out of the oven, she found that the top of the pie had quietly exploded. Filling and bits of crust had gathered in a pool at the bottom of the oven, and the mixture had blackened and hardened in a burnt mess. Winry had to clean the oven four times before the smell of burnt apples and sugar finally went away.

"Not nearly as good as Miss Gracia, but someday…" Winry was choked off by the return of tears. "I'd hoped…"

Edward sat on the couch across from Winry. He waited until the next words wrenched themselves from her chest. She lifted her head and looked directly at him, tears flowing down her cheeks.

Completely submerged in Hughes' blood, they had found a picture of his wife and daughter.

"…that Mr. Hughes—would get to try some too!"

Edward's breath caught in his throat.

Winry's body collapsed into itself as she began to sob once again that night. There had already been so many tears… She thought that maybe they would never stop.

That was fine. Mr. Hughes deserved everything she had to give.

After all, he had given everything to help them.

Her hands desperately covered her face, trying to hide her grief from Edward. This boy had already felt so much grief in his life—he didn't need hers on top of that.

Edward sat with his hands in his lap, staring at Winry, frozen. If there were anything that he wanted more than to bring Hughes back—if there were anything that he wanted even more than getting his and Alphonse's bodies back—it was for Winry to stop crying. Seeing her pain quieted the pain that raged in his own heart, and he could only focus on finding a way to comfort her.

Of course, being himself, he didn't know how to do that.

So he continued to sit frozen, unable to do anything about the pain that his childhood friend felt, the darkness that was swirling around inside her, consuming her. The darkness of losing someone who was nothing but selfless to everyone he met, who wanted to do the right thing and bring the truth to the surface—even to the point of death—because it was just and good. Not only was it the loss itself, but the permanency of it—and the helplessness. Nothing could be done to change anything. Edward had already tried that. It got him his metal leg, and the metal arm, and the metal hand now gripping his knee.

Nothing could be done to bring Hughes back. Just like nothing could be done to comfort Winry.

Edward gripped his knees tighter. Rage was taking over him, he could feel it. Rising. Boiling.

His hand shot out to the basket of apples, and before he knew what he was doing, he hurled an apple across the room. He heard himself screaming, and he heard the apple smack against the door that led to the hallway. But everything else was red.

He fired apple after apple at the door, the sounds of thuds punctuating Edward's animalistic screams. At one point, he ripped his red trench coat off and threw it, in some direction. After all of the apples had been thrown, he grabbed the basket and threw it with just as much force across the room. It careened comically through the air and landed only a few feet away from him.

When Edward heard his screams stop, he realized he was on his feet, every muscle in his body tensed. Winry was gone; she had gone to the bedroom some time during Edward's outburst. Apple gore was splattered on the front door and across the walls. Pulpy chunks of apples and juice dripped down the door and seeped into the carpet on the floor.

Finally, Edward relaxed, his blood calming down and returning to its normal flow. Seeing the fruit carnage, he was actually kind of impressed with himself. Ordinarily, it would have taken equal carnage, but against another person, for him to calm down.

He guessed that was progress.

The action and the destruction had pushed back the grief for a short time. Now it flowed back into him, like a liquid taking on the shape of its container. And he remembered Winry.

He moved through the space in the wall that separated the sitting room from the bedroom, where the dim yellow light of the single lamp could not reach. As his eyes adjusted, Edward saw the Winry was laying on her side, curled into the tightest ball she could manage, facing the wall. He couldn't hear her crying, but the occasional panicky breath gave away the sobs that she was desperate to hide from him, from everything outside of herself.

Maybe if she could keep the grief to herself, she thought, others wouldn't have to feel it too.

This was completely new to Edward. Any time he had seen Winry, she either had a smile on her face, eager to see him and work on his auto mail, or was totally enraged because he had broken it in the first place. This empty Winry, Edward had no experience with.

Come to think of it, he had never seen anyone like this. Everyone around him seemed so strong. So strong, sometimes, that he felt like the broken one, something that his artificial limbs didn't help. He always felt like the weakest one in the room. Sure, he was physically strong, despite being (he hated to admit it) so short for his age. But physical abilities weren't everything.

 _Don't Forget 3 Oct. 11_

Maybe if he had been stronger, there would be nothing to remember.

Maybe if he were stronger, he'd be able to help Winry.

But he was weak. He could see that now.

Another half-choked gasp came from Winry. If it was possible, she tucked herself into an even tighter ball. She wasn't even under the blankets. That would have taken too much effort, Edward guessed.

 _Pinch both pieces of dough together at the edge of the pie tin where they meet, into beautiful little folds. Now what did you do the last time to get the sweet glaze on the crust…?_

Come on, Edward, stop feeling sorry for yourself, Winry needs you, he thought to himself. And yet there was another part of him that wanted to flee and curl up into a ball himself, to hold his own grief to his body and curl around it like a salve for his wounds, just like Winry was doing. But he knew that it wouldn't heal him, just like this wouldn't heal Winry.

Not only that, but to leave and hide would be selfish. And Lieutenant Colonel Hughes was never selfish.

Think, Edward. What could he do?

Several images began forming and looping through his mind. Lieutenant Colonel Hughes shoving pictures of Gracia and Elicia into Edward's face before clutching them to his chest. Alphonse hugging the chimera of Nina and Alexander close to his armor body, and the blank look in the chimera's eyes and it struggled to understand what he was doing. And finally, Winry herself a few hours before, with Elicia on her lap. Elicia slept close to Winry's chest, while Winry curled herself around her. But Elicia slept, transported to another fantasy world of dreams that didn't have to hurt as much as real life did.

 _Brush cream on top of the dough. And then sprinkle it with some brown sugar. Put it in the oven to bake. Turn the oven light on, and watch the heat take over…_

Edward was moving across the room to the bed. He found himself climbing onto the bed and wrapping his arms around Winry. His chin was pressed into her shoulder, and his chest was pressed into her back. It would have been difficult, he thought, to see where she ended and he began. Difficult to distinguish her grief from his. Let me hold some of this sadness for you, he thought as he pressed his body even closer to hers.

He didn't know if it was working for her, but surprisingly, Edward found it was helping him. He could feel his body lose some of that darkness, and the light of Winry's body heart shined into the dark places of his mind and heart.

And after a few minutes of thick silence, Winry let out one long sigh, uninterrupted by sobs. Edward could feel her muscles relax, her bones fall apart. The room still felt dark, and he could feel the grief-creature crouching in the corner of the room, naked to the human eye, but it had left them for a moment. Now, there was just quiet comfort. The scent of one another's skin.

Winry sniffled again, to hopefully once and for all get rid of the signs of sadness, and tried to subtly wipe her nose against the pillow. Prompted by her movement, Edward loosened his grip on her, and Winry turned to face him. She buried her face into his neck. Even though Winry was easily taller than Edward, right now her head was level with his chest. He loved the way her breath was spreading across his skin. Edward didn't think he had ever been as warm in his life as he was now.

Edward placed his hand on the back of her head and stroked her hair.

"Winry," he said. "Please… let me help you."

Suddenly, another image came into his head. A blue sky. The back of his head on concrete. But he didn't think he had fallen. He was lying on the ground. Someone was lying above his head.

Winry's arms were tucked against her chest in an X, but then she moved them and placed them loosely on Edward's hips. Not only did her face, her legs, her arms, her hips press into Edward's body, but now her breasts did too.

It was Alphonse lying with him on the concrete.

"We even fought over which one of us was going to marry Winry," Alphonse had said.

Winry, who was right here in front of him. With the blue eyes that were now hidden behind closed eyelids. With the long blond hair that was now draped over his arms. With lips that were now slightly parted as she breathed through them, on her way to the same land of easy dreams that Elicia had gotten to escape to during their visit.

Edward had lied and said he hadn't remembered that particular fight.

"I won. But she shot me down."

When Alphonse said that, Edward felt a ringing in his stomach as he wondered if she would shoot _him_ down, as he wondered if he would ever find the opportunity to ask her. Maybe when she leaned over him to look at his broken arm. Maybe when her head was down at his lap when she tinkered with his leg.

That ringing in his stomach was back now. The grief-creature in the corner shrank. Edward was aware that there had been a force weighing on him, convincing him that happiness would never again be possible. But now he didn't dare name that force.

Instead, he wondered if the Lieutenant Colonel ever held his wife like this.

Suddenly in his mind it was him wearing the state alchemist's uniform, shoving pictures of Winry in unsuspecting bystanders' faces. It was him feeding apple pie to a baby. It was him kissing the top of Winry's head as she put her hand on top of his and leaned into him.

 _Oh, shit._

Edward went rigid. He was getting an erection.

He was thinking that maybe Winry wouldn't notice when she suddenly opened her eyes.

She was frozen in place, bones tensing against their joints. With her face at Edward's neck, she could feel it poking her in the stomach. She would have been lying if she said she had never been tempted to look while repairing or upgrading Edward's leg, or if she had said she never was suddenly aware of how physically close their bodies were as she detached or reattached his auto mail.

But she had been so close to sleep, so close to feeling nothing. Now this ambiguous but dark feeling, of missing without having someone to miss, brought back the missing of Mr. Hughes, and that brought back the missing of Gracia and Elicia, and of her own parents, and of Granny, and the missing of Edward's mother and of missing Edward though he was right in front of her, until Winry's soul was calling out to and being pulled in too many diverging directions, a pulling so strong that she was certain that she was no longer in this room, that bits of her were being scattered across Amestris, to Ishval, even to Xing, all across the greedy earth.

But Edward's hard penis in her stomach told her that she was still here. That she was still alive and whole.

She didn't look up. "Ed…" Winry croaked.

"Shit, Winry, I'm sorry, I don't know why—"

"I know how you can help me."

She moved her leg in between his. Her hand slipped underneath his t-shirt and made lazy mindless patterns along his side. Edward quietly gasped as Winry's touch sent ripples along his spine.

"I…" Winry began. She still was looking at his chest. "I don't want to be inside my head anymore. There's too much there. There are too many people that I miss."

Winry lifted her chin and kissed Edward's collar bone. She shifted upwards—Edward acutely felt the friction—and softly kissed his Adam's apple. Then she shifted until her face was right next to his, until their eyes met.

She placed her hand on the side of his face. "Please. Make me feel something else."

In the next moment, he was on top of her and their lips had already crashed together.

Their desperation was obvious in the way their hands wouldn't stop moving, in the way they squeezed their eyes shut. If they opened their eyes, they knew what they would see. The grief-creature, stalking its way along the walls, jealous, demanding to be felt.

But all they could feel right now was each other. Edward ran his metal hand along Winry's torso as the fingers on his other hand worked behind her back to undo the clasp on her bra. The cold metal against her skin made Winry shiver, and a noise rose from her core and pried her lips apart. Finally, the bra was undone and he could move to her breasts.

Winry pushed her hips into his, and he fumbled with his belt. Everything was moving so fast. But they knew they had to. The grief-creature was inching closer.

And finally they were one, what the universe was driving them to from the beginning. Their grief, their sorrow, dormant for now but it would wake again, was all one. Edward was burying that sorrow deep inside Winry, and she would gladly take it from him, because she knew that after it became too much to bear, Edward would take that sorrow back, and carry it across his shoulders for her. And it would be a weight they would carry for one another as long as the other let them, passing it back and forth between them, imagining that the other was happy.

But entropy has a habit of breaking down unity. First Winry gasped, then Edward. Then it was over.

They hadn't even taken off their clothes.

The two lay face to face, curling into one another, looking into the other's eyes. Edward searched for what lay behind Winry's. But Winry herself couldn't have told him if she had wanted to.

Edward brushed a piece of Winry's hair away from her face. "Did it help?"

Silence hung in the air. The grief-creature moved in to feast on the scraps.

"I don't know."

* * *

She was asleep now. Her eyes started falling not long after Edward asked the question, and Edward kept watch. Every time he saw that she was opening her eyes, he quickly closed his. After a while, he peeked, and saw that she had closed her eyes again. This continued until her breath became regular and full with sleep. Not a single tear fell.

Finally, he had thought. She wouldn't feel anything. He would gladly be the first one to carry the weight of their sorrow.

He got out of bed as gingerly as he could so as to not wake her, went to the sitting room. Picked his coat up from the floor and carried it on his arm. Opened the door with just the pads of his fingers to minimize his contact with the sticky apple remains.

There was no point in sneaking into his own hotel room. Alphonse wasn't asleep.

"Brother," Alphonse greeted him from the chair in the sitting room.

"Hey, Al."

"I heard you screaming and things hitting the wall, and then later I heard other noises, but I couldn't tell what was happening. Did you and Winry get into a fight?"

Edward loved his brother's innocence, still at 14 years old, after everything that they had been through.

"No, we didn't fight."

Alphonse was wise enough not to ask what happened, and Edward was grateful for that. He tossed his coat onto the floor and moved to the bedroom.

"Is Winry okay?"

Edward paused as he thought. Then he crawled into his own cold bed.

"I think for now."

Some time later Alphonse spoke again: "Are _you_ okay, brother?"

But Edward was asleep. So the answer was yes.

* * *

 **A/N: I am currently only on Episode 17 of the 2009 anime series, so any comments/reviews should be spoiler-free. I wrote this immediately after watching episode 16, so if there is anything that contradicts the established canon, I apologize for my state of ignorance.**

 **Thank you for reading, please leave any feedback, positive or negative, or criticism you may have. Improving my writing and connecting with a community of authors are two of my goals on this site. If you liked it, please favorite and share with fellow fans.**


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